The present invention relates generally to the field of displaying results obtained from search engines which locate documents or web sites in a computer network (e.g., a distributed system of computer systems), and in particular, to a method for speeding up a desired search by anticipating a user's request. When a computer system user begins typing a core search query into a search box at many search engines, a drop down list appears under the search box which offers selectable suggestions for related query terms even before entry of the core search term or phrase has finished. The suggestions may also provide alternative URLs for web pages if the user is typing the address of a web page into the search box. Heretofore, such a drop down list has been in text alone and lacked any indication of the number of “finds or “hits” for the suggested related query terms or their actual or potential overlap with the core search query.
Some of the problems with existing displays of suggested related queries include a requirement on the user of selecting only one suggested related query and abandoning the core query in doing so. The user cannot create a customized filter for suggested related queries, such as the Boolean selections of AND, OR, EXCLUDE and so forth. The existing suggestions of related queries give no advance indication of the scope of the results which will be reported should the suggestion be accepted in substitution for the core query.